Slaves of electricity

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We are slaves of electricity. Outwardly, it might appear that Tesla and Edison wrangled electricity into submission — into usable power — but really, ever since the first commercial light bulb and high-fidelity telegraph, electricity has ruled the lives of men.

Almost every facet of contemporary society is dictated by the properties of electricity. Like fresh water, sanitation, and education, access to electrical power can make or break a community.

The tenacity of electric-powered devices and machines is unbelievably vast. With modern robotics, there is almost nothing that electricity can’t do — and a lot that electricity can do that humans can’t. The amount of work performed by electricity is beyond belief, too. From sowing crops to preparing food, from making computer chips to manufacturing cars, electricity does so much work that would otherwise have to be done by humans.

Which brings me neatly onto the topic of batteries. At their most basic, batteries are devices that store electrical power. Until very recently, the archetypal battery would be an alkaline AA — useful for listening to music on your Walkman, or powering your RC car controller; batteries were useful, but hardly vital. Over the last few years, though, a dramatic shift has occurred. As chip makers — such as Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm — have refined their processes, computers have become steadily more mobile: Laptops, then mobile phones, then netbooks, and finally smartphones and tablets. This year, in the US, 76% of all PCs sold will be laptops, and tablets will outsell desktops. In the next couple of years, it is predicted that 75% of Americans will own a smartphone.

In short, the vast majority of computer users now rely on battery-powered devices — which is a problem, because battery technology isn’t developing at a pace that can keep up with our usage. While we’re almost at the stage where silicon chips are assembled atom by atom, battery technology has remained virtually unchanged since Alessandro Volta created the first battery in 1800: Two electrodes with an electrolyte between them. While semiconductor complexity (processors and LCD displays) has generally doubled every 18 months in accordance with Moore’s law, battery capacity has slowly clawed its way upwards. Even more worryingly, theoretically there is no better electrode than lithium when it comes to electrochemical potential or energy-to-weight ratio — lithium-based batteries are as good as it gets.

iPad 3: It's ALL BATTERIES

In practice, this means that we’re heading towards a battery crunch, where batteries cannot keep up with our increasingly mobile lifestyle. A good example is the iPad 3: Higher-resolution screens require more power to control and more power to illuminate. As a result, the iPad 3’s li-ion battery is 70% larger than the one in the iPad 2 (42.5 watt-hours vs. 25), and yet they both have the same 10-hour battery life. A larger battery and stronger backlight means that the iPad 3 is both heavier and thicker than the iPad 2, too — all for a high-res screen. In the realm of high technology, it is exceedingly rare for a follow-up device to be bigger than its predecessor — but that’s the battery crunch for you.

Mobile LTE is another fine example: It might be faster than UMTS 3G, but it consumes a lot more power in the process. First-generation LTE devices, such as the HTC Thunderbolt, famously ran out of juice after just a few hours of LTE connectivity. Ditto RAM and non-volatile storage: As capacities and transfer speeds increase, as does power consumption. The fact of the matter is that high-res screens and wireless communications (WiFi, cellular) consume the lion’s share of your battery’s capacity — and, unless we all come to an agreement that high-PPI displays and mobile internet access are pointless, this won’t change.

While the next few years will likely be full of beautiful, powerful devices that only last a few hours between charges, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Intel, AMD, and ARM licensees are all frantically battling to produce the most efficient chips for mobile devices. Sharp’s IGZO and Samsung’s LTPS promise to significantly reduce the display’s power consumption. With the recent shift to 28 and 22nm processes, wireless radios consume less power. At the end of the day, though, we’re talking about reductions of 10 or 20% over a few years, which is unlikely to be enough to offset the unstoppable double whammy of Moore’s law and society’s shift towards mobile, ubiquitous computing.

Ultimately, our biggest hope lies in battery technology itself. One of the biggest jumps in battery capacity will come from replacing graphite anodes (the positive electrode) with silicon nanotubes. The same group (Yi Cui and his team at Stanford University) is working on an everlasting battery that uses water as an electrolyte — but that battery is angled towards power grid storage (another equally huge topic, especially with the growth of solar power). Also on another tack, IBM is working on a lithium-air battery that’s a tenth of the size/weight of conventional li-ion batteries — it will be primarily targeted at electric cars, but could eventually (10+ years) be used to power mobile devices.

In all cases, we shouldn’t expect a significant boost to battery capacity for at least 5 years — and even then, who knows if the gains will be large enough to catch up with semiconductor tech. The battery crunch is here to stay. How will manufacturers react? So far, consumers seem quite happy with devices that eschew battery life in favor of screen size and performance — and ultimately, consumers are king, right? Will business and travel users fight back and demand low-resolution, long-life devices? Personally, I’m going to buy five low-res ultrabooks and keep them in the attic — hopefully that’ll buy me enough time until the battery crunch passes.

And that was a great article Sebastian. Please, please do it again. I like it when people consider more than the next six months. Battery crunch is a much overlooked problem. I remembered I read about it in an IT magazine in 2002 (yes!) and not anymore for ten years.

You wrote the first article I read on this issue in 10 years. And the second in my lifetime. Granted, I am not an engineer but I am quite knowledgeable and read a lot. Which makes your article all the more interesting.

Now Sebastian, I suggest you continue with an article about:
– energy harvesting – possibilities are staggering here, mostly using mechanical energy. human articulations and footsteps, energy of water going down the kitchen sink (yes, it exists), displacement winds of cars along a highway (already use for powering up emergency stations), pressure under the road when an automotive runs over it… plus various others kind of pico-generators.
– reduction of demand by further lowering the need. Retina display (retina, not Retina) requires much less energy than 22” displays, for instance and the same goes for osteophones instead of microphones or implanted phones instead of loudspeakers.

If your article was to be subtitled “danger”, this second one would be called “solutions”

mori bund

Actually such over-the-top introductions show Sebastian’s enthusiasm for tech, which is one of the reasons why I like his articles.^^
Hold on to that, Sebastian! :-)

Battery effiency space station effiency, if energy output could reach 10x, who knows how far we can tether the netisphere.

This is incredible, this is a massive find just as much as finding a living megaladon! I have only heard of krakens, maybe with this deep sea pressure can be ebolished.

Luke Formosa

A very interesting article. My thoughts on a couple of points:
-To have a car that runs without electricity, all you need is to use older technology. That means a Diesel engine with a jerk pump in place of electronic fuel injection; hydraulic power steering; a mechanical vacuum pump for the brakes and an all-hydraulic automatic gearbox (or a normal manual gearbox).

– The solution to the portable electricity problem is to move away from batteries and use chemical energy instead. So either have a little piston engine and a generator, powered by a tank of lighter fluid (an engine/generator/fuel tank combo the size of a normal laptop battery will run a normal laptop non-stop for 10 days). The difficult part at this point in time is making the engine. Option 2 is to use a fuel cell and a hydrogen fuel tank. You can “recharge” it by creating your own hydrogen at home using electricity and water so it’s even better than the lighter fluid idea. Only problem is making fuel cells that are compact and powerful enough.

Or, option 3 is to create a tiny nuclear reactor and ship each device with enough grams of nuclear fuel built-in to give the device about 3 years’ worth of constant mobile usage. I don’t think I need to spell out the problems that need solving with this one :) (for instance, how to make the nuclear fuel inaccessible to the end user).

-Regarding stocking up on old tech – you probably already know this, but a lithium battery’s life clock starts ticking from the instant it leaves the factory. Regardless of whether you use it or not, the electrolyte attacks the electrodes so within 3 years your battery will have a very high internal resistance and hence will only provide fraction of its initial useful capacity (something like 70% after 3 years if you store it in the fridge; much less at higher temperatures).

Yeah, chemical energy is definitely going to help. Fuel cells should just about be here. I don’t know if they have the right shape to fit laptops/tablets/smartphones though — I don’t know if they can be long and thin. Need to research some more, I guess.

bobjinx

I can’t remember all the details but I believe Toshiba or another Japanese company have already demonstrated methanol powered fuel cells sizes consumer electronics (I think they demonstrated a laptop battery but I just fished an exam so recall of relatively useless facts is at a all time low at the moment).

The nuclear device idea is entirely feasible – it would just be powered by thorium reactors instead of uranium ones. They’re safer, more efficient, and you can’t weaponize thorium.

cppcrispy

Something that was not mentioned in this article is the time it takes to recharge a battery. If the time to obtain a full charge decreased from a few hours to a few minutes, then that would mitigate the capacity issue. The problem with batteries is the rage anxiety. If you know that the battery does not last all day and you know that it takes hours to fully charge the battery, then you would be concerned about how long it can last. If you decrease the recharge time and you incorporate wireless recharging then people could recharge their phones/devices almost anywhere. This would also remove the hurdle that electric cars have because they could be recharged in the same amount of time that it takes you to fill up with gas. With that said capacity is only one aspect of the battery issue and if the recharge time can be decreased, then capacity would not be such a big issue.

I wonder if wireless charging will ever solve this issue. Is it technologically feasible for wireless charging to work over extremely large areas? Imagine a race that’s like LTE coverage, but rather wireless charging coverage!

it’s interesting to watch what happens when the power goes out for more than a few hours. People come out of their houses and start TALKING to each other ! “What if electricity ceased to exist” is an interesting thought experiment and always will be.

Yep, indeed. I think there’s a TV show coming this autumn, actually — Revolution or something? Some new JJ Abrams thing.

I like how there’s always a mini baby boom after power cuts…

greybirdtoo

OK, I’ve suspended my belief and… Oh my! It’s worse than you thought! Your gas grill doesn’t work because it used electricity to create the spark. Even if you had a gas range and gas heat you’d be out of luck because they use electricity for the pilot light. (I believe that more modern ones even require electricity be available for the pilot light before opening the valve to prevent unburned gas build-up.) We’d be back to the Victorian era at best. Most modern homes would be unbearable except in the mildest of weather because they aren’t made to capture cross breezes to cool the house, or circulate heated air to warm them if they have a fireplace.

Thomas Bell

I’ll see your hyperbole and raise you infinity. We’d have far more fundamental problems since our brains rely on electrical impulses to operate… But what we’re really talking about is a world where electrons no longer flow, so either absolute zero or a scenario where electrons simply don’t exist – in other words nihilism. Under those circumstances cold bread would be the least of your worries.

To be fair, if you had a tank of natural gas on a grill there is always lighting it with a good ole butane/lighter fluid and flint combination. The other responder had an excellent point though, if you are talking about a world where electrons do not flow to create electrical impulses, life as we know it simply could not exist. That being said, humanity has proven itself to be incredibly innovative, if something were to cause us to be unable to use electrical devices, there are plenty of chemical/heat reactions that could be brought back into play.

“it is exceedingly rare for a follow-up device to be bigger than its predecessor” ??? What have cell phone and laptop makers been doing for the decade? If you mean package size sure, but in terms of capacity I hardly agree. Yes people want compact portable devices but they want to be able to use them. What is the rumor with iPhone 5? Larger screen, right? Why is that? Because Samsung and HTC, etc have been listening to their customers who want larger interfaces to be more productive. LCD TVs. Have they gotten smaller? Last time I check they were getting bigger. I can go on and on….

Guest

I wonder if wireless charging will ever solve this issue. Is it technologically feasible for wireless charging to work over extremely large areas? Imagine a race that’s like LTE, but rather to cover the country with wireless charging.

Sam Jacobs

Hi,
My name is Sam. I am working on a National History Day project and I was wondering if I could use your picture of electricity for my documentary for educational purposes only.
Thanks

Sam Jacobs

Hi,
My name is Sam. I am working on a National History Day project and I was wondering if I could use your picture of electricity for my documentary for educational purposes only.
Thanks

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jackie cox

reading on a tesla site, of batteries 1,000 times more powerful than current lithium ion batteries, would mean electric cars currently getting anywhere between 35 and 160 miles could increase to 35,000 and 160,000 miles, Reading this kind of internet spam trying to sucker unwary buyers into buying cars with lithium ion batteries that have an actual coefficient of expansion that virtually terminates the battery in about 5 years would indicate its little more than SPAM

Cas Peyton

#MeditationTree

Could you imagine that the top layer of the earth is roughly 15% of the livable life visible. Deep down is a unknown habitat of with the potential of its own ecosystem. humans havent searched 80% of the under water caverns and unground lakes and potentially full oceans.

sub marines have pressure limits, but does an energy bubble? I have so many questions about this bacteria. ! can only imagine what modified electronic bacteria is capable of